The Perfect Run

Bugs Bunny.

The rabbit was Ryan’s most beloved character in all of fiction, and he had watched all its cartoons during his endless wandering. The courier always laughed at hunters’ failure to catch the wily animal, their rage growing with each missed bullet.

So it must have been very frustrating for these two.

“Stop it!” By now, Ghoul fumed so much that it became difficult to see through the white mist surrounding him. The whole harbor was slowly freezing, while the Psycho threw car-sized blocks of ice at Ryan. “Stop dodging!”

Ryan lazily stopped time, moved out of a projectile's path, then cancelled his power. The Psycho was actually getting worse with his aiming the more angered he grew. Unfortunately, the white mist surrounding Mr. dem bones also made it impossible for Ryan to get in close without freezing in place.

He knew he should have invested in a thicker sweater.

“Ghoul, he’s a speedster!” Sarin snarled, still standing on a roof to keep the high ground. She was no more successful than her ally at hitting Ryan, who mocked her by activating his time-stop just when her blasts were within an inch of reaching him. At one point, the courier even took the time to blow her a kiss. “Just freeze him already!”

“I’m not a speedster, I’m Quicksave!” Ryan shouted, before revealing his greatest secret. “I’m immortal, but don’t tell anyone!”

“Soon you’re just going to be blood on the pavement!”

What pavement? By now the two Psychos had destroyed the entire waterfront, turning it into an icy wasteland of snow and craters. Ryan had to keep moving north to find ground to stand on, eventually luring the duo to an empty parking lot.

While Ghoul pursued him on foot, his female companion glided on top of a streetlight, somehow managing to avoid slipping up. There was something wrong with the way she moved, as if she had no weight at all. All Psychos were mutants, so she must have an abnormal physiology beneath the hazmat suit.

“I’m sorry but you make ice cream and blow off air,” Ryan pointed out. “Household products can do it. While I control the lynchpin of all reality. I try not to sound patronizing but…”

Ghoul unleashed a wide burst of white mist with a furious growl, freezing everything in its path.

Ryan simply activated his time-stop and dodged once again. Still, growing bored with the pursuit and now having an opening, he grabbed two of his throwing knives; launching one at Ghoul’s remaining eye, the other at Sarin.

When time resumed, Ghoul lost his remaining eye, and Sarin took a knife to the chest.

“You ain’t making it easy.”

Ryan stopped talking, however, when green gas came out of Sarin’s hazmat suit. The strange substance immediately rusted the streetlight below the Psycho, causing the electrical parts to short-circuit and the metal to slowly bend. Sarin put a hand on the opening, trying to keep the gas inside.

He knew she was full of hot air.

“I’ll kill you…” Ghoul whined, his face now looking like a strawberry sorbet with all the frozen blood flowing from his skull. It was vaguely horrifying, but Ryan had seen worse. “I’ll kill you…”

“Ghoul, I know the sight of my dashing costume and my long, bloody bat made you fall for me at first sight,” Ryan taunted him. “Trust me, I get that a lot. But I just don’t see you that way.”

to God, I swear it,” rasped the abominable ice cream, his hands on his face, “If you crack

will give me the cold shoulder?”

fury, his body swallowed by white mist. The strange substance seemed to swirl around him, creating layers

with a four meters tall titan of ice and snow. This strange fusion between a

“Oh.”

had the time to leap to the side, as the enormous snowman attempted to squash him like a bug. The sheer strength of the elemental construct shattered the concrete and shook the ground. Sarin meanwhile, was too busy trying to cover the hole

did Ghoul manage to make that body work? Ice didn’t work that way, it couldn’t even

across the parking lot, growing louder with each new step. Something heavy was rushing towards

lot, his hands manifesting a

you guys paid them off?” Ryan asked, dodging another strike from Ghoul. He wondered how the Psycho could locate him without his eyes, guessing it probably had something to

not the harbor’s destruction!” Zanbato glanced at the two Psychos present, and first cut the streetlight on which Sarin stood. Miss Chernobyl glided to the other end of the parking lot, confirming Ryan’s

through the giant snowman’s leg like a turkey, slicing it clean in half. Yet the limb quickly reattached itself to the body, Zanbato having to step back to avoid being frozen by mist. The Augusti mafioso still tried to hack at the giant, proving himself so annoying that Ghoul abandoned his pursuit of Ryan to attack

his eyes to watch an attack helicopter fly above the parking lot. He recognized it as a customized Agusta A129 Mangusta, piloted

a pile of bank notes at them, as a

with

stopped time just long enough to move out of the bomb’s way, thankful that they didn’t use laser weapons; he was fast, but not as much as light.

protected his face with his hand and avoided being knocked back, his armor deflecting debris; while Ghoul’s snowman form took the projectiles without showing any form of discomfort. Sarin, however, was pushed backward by the blast, quickly getting back on her

towards the skies. A second later, she fired

had gone on long

her gauntlet at Ryan, the courier stopped time

form next to the aircraft. A humanoid figure, nearly impossible to see in the darkness, and only visible due to the smoke blurring their features.

meant Ryan could focus on the

the clouds of toxic fumes hanging in the air from her wound, and moved her

physics, the ice construct exploded in a rain of droplets and shards, a helpless Ghoul hitting the ground

realizing what happened, Sarin barely had the time to turn her head around

“Blow this.”

her to

tossed her backward. Ryan barely had the time to dodge by leaping to the side, as the holes in her mask unleashed a stream

seconds. Yeah, sure, he could have ended it a lot sooner by gutting

winning. It was about

Zanbato

he couldn’t see his favorite

his other power. He never dies,

immortal too?” Ryan gasped,

a birthday cake and tossed the head into the sea.” Zanbato glanced at the space where Sarin had blasted the Private Security’s helicopter. The machine

his self-driven Plymouth

car can move by itself?” Zanbato